Local company launches program to monitor students’ online posts

This is an archived article and the information in the article may be outdated. Please look at the time stamp on the story to see when it was last updated.

PLAINFIELD, IND. — A local man said he spent nearly 30 years in law enforcement and in school security, but two years ago, he decided it was time to turn from a physical officer presence at schools to a digital presence.

“What I’ve witnessed over the last few years is a lot of students, whether they’re reaching out for help, they’ve been using Facebook as a vehicle, or to perpetrate a crime or to bully someone,” Bruce Canal said.

Canal launched Social Net Watcher to monitor what students are posting online. The algorithm detects dangerous words, then scans for phrases to put those words in context. If someone posts about hurting themselves or hurting others, then the school administrators get a push alert to their smart phones and email addresses. There are three different color code alerts for violence, possible suicide threats, and bullying.

“We know now in the wake of the event at Sandy Hook that parents are very concerned and students are sometimes frightened to go to school…. If a student posts something stupid, then they’re going to pay consequences, and this hopefully will give the administration a chance to intercede and thwart that action before a student makes a really stupid mistake,” said Canal.

Monday morning. Shortridge High School and Indianapolis Public School will launch the program at school.

Social Net Watcher is an application that runs on Facebook accounts. Students will learn how to voluntarily sign up for the app at Monday’s presentation.

Chance Jackson, who was shot twice by classmate Michael Phelps at their Martinsville middle school in 2011, is a proponent of Social Net Watcher.

Bill In Indy

martinstucky

Most kids won't sign up for this anyway. If their parents make them sigh up they will just set up a new account and have a "clean" account. This is the same moronic argument as gun control. If you make guns illegal then just the criminals will have them. No kid is going to sign up for this service and then add this type of comments on their facebook. The new joke will be to hack all your friends facebooks and add comments like this to get out of a math test as they close down the school.
My suggestion is that they should take heed when someone tells them about a threatening comment on a facebook account rather than dismissing it like they did in Martinsville. The community will police the network better than this program.
Next question is what other data will he be collecting and selling to advertisers, sex offenders etc. If he can monitor this type of data he could certainly collect a great deal of information which can be valuable. I think the "1984" comment is quite accurate.

ClanSmokeJaguar

lol!

Always someone trying to make a digital hustle! Now, I'm not knocking this guy but…well…this is just dumb.

First off, the first line of defense with social networking for children and teens are the parents. There's a plethora of tools available for parents to choose from with the parents having access to the minor's account being the most effective (also some Fox59 did an advertisement like this one for some nutty service where parents and children have to sign up to have accounts monitored)

Secondly, WTF makes the guy think a trouble child is going to put forth the effort to sign up for this?

Also, why are school admins getting an alert? If a child posts threats or some other nonsense, the parent needs to be notified as a priority, not some fat azzed school admin.

Fox59! Really!? These articles are obvious advertisements because it's very little news worthiness in them. How does one get presented on Fox59 in this capacity? To whom must we write a check?

Julie

wjsobo1

This is one the most outrageous forms of invasion of privacy I have ever heard of in my life and I'm not young. People in our country seem to just love to strong arm others and control their entire life. Yet they always seem to want to take the easy way out. To use a bandaid for a short term fix on a major social issue that's been going on for years. There are particular kids that like to bully. These children need to be identified young, taught correct behavior and monitored. You absolutely do not institute a system that has the ability for abuse that can potentially ruin a child's entire life. It is ludicrous to believe you need this system to identify bullies or emotionally disturbed children. We have neglected to provide the necessary resources required to eliminate the problems. The bottom line is these children have been neglected by their parents, the schools and society. It is totally irresponsible to jeopardize all children's future for the neglect of a few. Get rich, knee jerk reactions are never good for the masses.